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By Kim Thorburn

I have the privilege of serving as a fish and wildlife commissioner. What an honor to make policy for conservation of the states diverse fish and wildlife! My statutory mandate (RCW 77.04.012) is clear: The wildlife, fish and shellfish are the property of the state. As a commissioner, I shall preserve, protect, perpetuate, and manage the wildlife and food fish, game fish, and shellfish in state waters and offshore waters.

My mandate permits me to authorize the taking of wildlife, food fish, game fish, and shellfish only at times or in manners or quantities as in my judgment does not impair the supply of these resources. It also says I shall attempt to maximize the public recreational game fishing and hunting opportunities of all citizens, including juvenile, disabled and senior citizens.

My mandate does not say I shall limit taking of wildlife because some Washington residents dont like certain times, manners or quantities. The restriction is to not impair the supply of the resource. I am required to use my judgment. Determination about supply impairment can be challenging. Simply put, I ask myself, Does a species population health support takings in the time, manner, and quantity under consideration?

Simply asked is not always straightforwardly answered. Wildlife do not submit census forms and estimating population size requires a variety of data. Ive experienced the complexity from hours in the field collecting population data by numerous methods. Other components of population health involve survival analysis and whether there are enough young to replace mortality. Habitat affects population health, especially as drought and development take their toll. The commission considers all these data in setting time, manner and quantity of takings.

My mandate does not say anything about ethical hunting; it requires legal constraints on time, manner and quantity to prevent resource impairment. Ive heard many claims about some regulated hunting activity being unethical. This charge was used in the 1996 initiative campaign that banned hound hunting and bear baiting in the state. I heard it frequently while debating a ban of legally sanctioned coyote contests. Now the commission is hearing declarations that hunting black bears during spring is unethical. Recently, I heard the often repeated assertion that hunting for meat is OK but not trophies. Neighboring states are dealing with moves that trapping is unethical. These claims arise from an ideology that is fundamentally anti-hunting.

The ideology shows little understanding of hunter culture. I love to be in the woods during fall when the largest number of hunting seasons are open. Meeting hunters, I understand the experience of the seasons outdoor beauty, the time with family, the camaraderie of hunter camp, the thrill of the hunt and the excitement from prize quarry. As a hard-core birder, I appreciate every aspect of the hunt and disagree with an ideology that finds hunting unethical.

Hunters subscribe to an ethical premise called fair chase. I learned early in my commissioner term that there are unsettled questions about what comprises fair chase. We debated a rule about eliminating baiting for deer and elk hunting. Hunters testified passionately on both sides: attracting animals with bait was not fair chase versus baiting improved the chance for a clean shot and success for hunters with limitations. The commission concluded there was no evidence that baiting impaired the resource supply except in instances of massive amounts. We enacted a rule that restricted bait quantity.

Many view hunting as contrary to wildlife conservation. There are numerous uncontrollable factors that influence wildlife population health, but hunting can be a fine-tuned conservation tool. Management of overabundant species that threaten more vulnerable species is a case in point. For example, there is solid evidence that coyotes are a significant nest predator of Washingtons imperiled prairie grouse species. Carefully timed coyote contests could have been used to relieve the threat.

The anti-hunting ideology complains that huntings role in wildlife management means game species receive more conservation attention than nongame species. I coordinate volunteer projects for recovery of some at-risk species. Many hunters volunteer because of appreciation for wildlife diversity and ecosystems. Most ideological conflicts that consume the commission concern a few totemic species, mostly carnivores, not facing population health threats. The conflicts devour huge amounts of resources that might otherwise serve critical wildlife conservation needs.

Ideological conflicts are culture wars. They are started and fueled by ideologues. Hunting is under attack in Washington with ideologues picking off one legal hunt after another, using emotional rhetoric like unethical to vilify hunters and hunting. My ears still sting from an anti-coyote contest advocate who called contestants fringy. Resolution of wildlife conservation conflict will be more durable through respectful collaborative processes, not picking partisan ideological sides.

Kim Thorburn is a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife commissioner. The views in this opinion piece are hers and do not necessarily represent the WDFW Commission or WDFW.

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op_210124_guest_thorburn - The Spokesman-Review

The shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy sought to draw parallels between Mr Trump's tacit support for white supremacists during riots in Charlottesville in 2017 and the Prime Minister's criticism of left-wing protesters who defaced a statue of Winston Churchill during protests in the UK last summer. Protesters vandalised the statue to the war time British leader in Parliament Square. The demonstrators daubed the words "was a racist" on the statue, prompting an angry response from the Prime Minister.

He said that although Winston Churchill's views may nowadays be "unacceptable to us", he nevertheless remained a hero for having saved the country from "fascist and racist tyranny".

He went on to write in a tweet: "We cannot try to edit or censor our past.

"We cannot pretend to have a different history."

In an article for The Guardian, Ms Nandy wrote: Two years later (after Charlottesville) we had the prime minister here trying to start a culture war over a statue of Churchill and also exactly the same pattern of behaviour in relation to trans rights.

"In 2019, No 10 was polling the red walls to see if it could start a culture war in northern towns over LGBT rights.

The shadow Foreign Secretary praised the incoming President Joe Biden, describing him as "a woke guy".

She argued that Mr Biden's victory provided an inspiration to Labour on how to win an election without compromising on progressive values or being drawn into culture wars.

She said: "Joe Biden hes a woke guy, he appointed an amazingly strong woman of colour who is also pro-choice as his running mate, he mentioned the trans community in his victory speech, he stood up for the Black Lives Matter protesters, he spoke out about the policing of that movement, and hes never shied away from standing up for his values.

READ MORE:Brexit fishing row: EU requires UK firms show SEVEN export documents

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Boris Johnson blasted by Lisa Nandy after defending Churchill as 'woke' war breaks out - Express

An international alliance to stand up to China? Thats what the new US President Joe Biden wants, but what are the chances of forging such a grand coalition of Western interests? Its worth a try, certainly. Just dont count on it, thats all.

Few issues speak quite as directly to Americas growing sense of insecurity as the rise of China. The sense of a nation broken by culture wars, economic malaise and political division contrasts sharply with an increasingly assertive Middle Kingdom powered by conformity and seemingly unstoppable economic growth.

In little more than a decade, US perceptions of China have gone from mutually beneficial economic partner to ideological, geopolitical and military rival which for too long has been allowed to take a naive West for a ride. A recent poll of US security experts conducted by the Washington based Centre for Strategic and International Studies found that nearly 80 per cent of respondents thought that if there was a military conflict with China today, the US would prevail. But that confidence shrunk to just 54 per cent ten years out.

Credit for sounding the alarm must go to Donald Trump; hes done more than anyone to shift the mindset from the accommodative approach of the past to the confrontational one we see today. Yet the harsh truth is that on almost every other level, his China policy has been a failure.

Far from containing China, it has only stiffened President Xi Jinpings resolve. China grows stronger by the day. The US trade deficit with China has not narrowed as Trump promised it would; the impact of the tariff war has fallen not on Chinese exporters but on American importers and consumers; few if any US firms have withdrawn from China and some have actually increased their investment there.

Nor have his policies succeeded in isolating China internationally; over the past several years, China has managed to strike numerous trading alliances with near neighbours and beyond, including key Western allies in the region such as Japan, Australia and New Zealand under the umbrella of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.

Biden promises to be just as tough as his predecessor on Xi, who he once described as a thug, but he proposes to do it through multilateral means, or by building an alliance of like-minded nations prepared to stand up to Chinas bully boy tactics.

If it is to work, it needs to be quantitatively and qualitatively different from the ineffectual machinations of the Obama administration, which only further emboldened the Xi regimes ambitions.

Yet Trumps unilateralism has proved equally toothless. By picking fights with virtually everyone, including supposedly friendly nations, he allowed China to divide and rule.

The united front against China that Biden seeks has already suffered something of a setback as a result of the China/EU investment deal struck last month.

The so-called Comprehensive Investment Agreement is supposed to give greater access to each others markets. Once championed by the UK while it was still a member of the EU, it has been under negotiation for more than seven years now, so can hardly be seen as a deliberate sleight.

What is more, it does little more than mirror the Phase One trade accord already reached by Donald Trump when attempting to de-escalate the US trade war with China a year or two back.

All the same, Europes timing, in the interregnum between Trump and Biden, and with the standoff over Hong Kong and the Uighurs reaching fever pitch, could scarcely have been more unfortunate. China sensed a chance to stick one on the US, and by offering a few arguably meaningless concessions at the last moment, it succeeded.

One of those concessions was agreement to conform with the International Labour Organisations convention on forced labour, which if enacted might offer some respite to the Uighurs. Yet there is no timetable for ratification of the convention, and the EU failed to obtain any commitment at all to separate guarantees on freedom of association.

The investment agreement is not a tool for regime change, the EUs director general for trade, Sabine Weyand, said bluntly in a recent interview. If complete conformity with Western human rights and state aid principles is what the Biden administration demands, she seemed to be saying, then the EU cant be a part of it, citing the latest Brussels buzz phrase of open strategic autonomy, or essentially the EU acting transparently in its own perceived self interest regardless of what others may want. So much for the collective front.

The UK is left tiptoeing its way between the EUs desire to trade, and Americas determination to isolate China and make it conform with Western norms. At Prime Ministers questions this week, Boris Johnson refused to call Chinese treatment of its Uighur minorities genocide, in contrast to team Trumps parting shot and what appears to be the position of the Biden administration. The sense is that he doesnt want entirely to burn bridges with Beijing.

Biden hopes to forge a united front against China; Xi banks on it not being as easy as it looks. He may be right.

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Biden hopes to forge a grand Western alliance to stand up to China. Don't count on it - Telegraph.co.uk

In years to come, we may recall Wednesdays inauguration ceremony by reading again Amanda Gormans words, delivered to a spellbound inauguration assembly (Biden offers a message of resilience in Americas winter of peril, 20 January). The authority of her poem comes from the clarity of its imagery and the uncompromising challenge of its rhetoric.

What it says ensures that, to relief at the end of Americas political nightmare and goodwill towards the two principals in the drama that unfolded, must now be added the assertion that we can raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.Frank PaiceNorwich

Amid the analysis of Joe Bidens inauguration speech, it is worth noting that he referred to the evil of racism twice, specifically mentioning systemic racism. At a time when the UKs Conservative government is determined to pretend systemic racism doesnt exist, this is refreshing.

But is any Labour politician willing to show a similar awareness of how racism operates in Great Britain? Will Keir Starmer step up to the mark and challenge the governments denial and strongly condemn the systemic racism that blights the lives of too many people in this country? I worry that the Labour leaderships fear of a culture wars backlash has already induced a reluctance to speak out for these fundamental values.Geoff SkinnerKensal Green, London

Perhaps Donald Trump could take solace in the fact that the crowd at his inauguration was definitely bigger than that at President Bidens. Size matters to him after all.Joan FurtadoWhitworth, Lancashire

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Hope and inspiration at Joe Biden inauguration - The Guardian

When Joe Biden was sworn in as the nations 46th president, he became just the second Catholic to hold the office, after having been just the fourth Catholic to be nominated by a major party. (Democrats nominated Al Smith in 1928, John F. Kennedy in 1960 and John Kerry in 2004.) A theme of Mr. Bidens inauguration speech was healing the deep divisions in the United States, but the theologian and historian Massimo Faggioli argues in his new book that polarization in the church is also a challenge to Mr. Bidens presidency.

In Joe Biden and Catholicism in the United States, Mr. Faggioli explores how Mr. Bidens faith played a central role in his campaign, how U.S. Catholics challenging Pope Francis could also cause headaches for the Biden administration and why he thinks the Vatican and United States are poised to work together in the immediate future to protect democracy and stability throughout the world.

Below is a telephoneinterview with Mr. Faggioli, which has been edited for length and clarity.

You wrote that the country has no problem with [Mr. Bidens] being Catholic, but a not-insignificant segment of the American Churchfrom among its bishops, its clergy, and its faithfulhas a problem with his Catholicism. What do you mean by that?

In my research on the previous Catholic candidates for president, it was clear that there were Catholics who were not really happy with those candidates, but it never became an inter-Catholic issue during the campaigns. After the election of Kennedy, having a Catholic president was a moment of pride and unity among Catholics. Thats something you dont find now because the culture wars, whatever that means, have really reshaped political parties and churches, including the Catholic Church. Right now what drives the religious identity in this country is not being a Catholic, being a Protestant or being Orthodox but what kind of Catholic, what kind of Protestant, what kind of Orthodox.

This is something that Biden will have to navigate that John Kennedy never had to deal with. This could be an obstacle, but it could also be an advantage in that there are very few other Catholics in the public square who have as credible a faith as Bidens. You may agree or not with him politically, but hes authentic; hes not fake; hes not playing church.

Biden made his Catholic faith a central part of the campaign, you write in the book. How did he do this? To whom did it appeal?

I think its clear especially if you compare his campaign to the four previous Catholic candidates. Each of them had to make their Catholic faith private. Because their faith was under attack during their campaigns, their defensive move was to say, Im Catholic, but it really doesnt matter to my politics. Thats something Biden didnt do and didnt have to do because theres no longer a massive anti-Catholic movement in this country.

You could see by the way he mentioned important Catholic figures like Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis, and when he mentioned the German Jesuit Alfred Delp, who was executed by the Nazis. This was not a campaign play because its something youve always seen in Joe Biden, like in his interviews with Stephen Colbert, so that came out quite naturally during the campaign.

This is part of the appeal because you may not agree with Joe Biden on all issues, but I sense that many American believers can see something in his faith that is true, that is authentic in him.

Are there similarities between Mr. Biden and Pope Francis that may help a working relationship?

Contrary to the times of Al Smith or John Kennedy or John Kerry, right now there is a very good common ground between the White House of Biden and the Vatican.

[They share] the fact that Biden and Pope Francis were elected to the highest office when they were almost in retirement or even beyond retirement and they are representatives and leaders of two very divided communities. But the most important thing they have in common is the Catholic opposition against one is almost the same as Catholic opposition against the other.

So theres a very significant overlapideologically, culturally, politicallybetween the Trump movement domestically and the anti-Francis movement. Since 2015, I believe they have been inseparable. So they will understand that they have a common thread, a common antagonist.

And this will help, I believe, shape a good relationship in the short- and medium-term. In the long-term, the Vatican and the West, they still have important differences. And those differences will emerge in time, I believe, but not right now, because the emergency threat against democracy, against the certain stability, is so serious that all long-term differences will be set aside for a while.

Im curious if Mr. Biden being Catholic is a pro or a con when it comes to his relationship with the Vatican, specifically around some of the life issues where there are clearly differences in opinion.

Historically, it is a problem or it can be an obstacle. But not right now, I think, only because of Francis. Pope Francis has never used the same language of social conservatives on abortion. And so there is there is clearly a difference between the language of the Democrats and the Catholic Church on abortion. But there is also a difference between the way the Vatican right now talks about abortion and the way Republicans talk about abortion. And so this is different now from what it was like with John Kerry and John Paul II and Barack Obama and Benedict.

Both Biden and the Vatican have problems with U.S. bishops, and this is a serious problem. They understand each other because they face an isolated U.S. episcopate that has become impossible to deal with, both for the pope and the Catholic president.

The Vatican always wants to have good relations with the U.S. president, no matter how distant some internal foreign domestic policies are.

You say U.S. bishops denied Biden any kind of honeymoon, even acting somewhat antagonistically after his election when they formed a special working group to consider how to work with a Catholic president. How do you expect this will impact relations between the U.S. church and the new president?

Well, we dont know. We have heard nothing more about the working group.

I believe that a change of language is required. But what it takes is something that I dont see happening yet, which is, indeed, rethinking what happened in these last few years. Honestly, I never expected the U.S. bishops to say to Catholics, go vote for Joe Biden. I never expected that. But it was also unexpected to see the kind of blindness that there was, not in all of them, but especially in some of them, until the very end of the Trump presidency as to what [the former] president meant for many Catholics, especially Latino Catholics and African-American Catholics.

So there has to be some kind of historical and moral reckoning with the failure in understanding what was happening. And thats when they can understand and learn more how to deal with a president who is not perfect, as a Catholic or as a politician. But certainly, I dont believe it helped the cause of the Catholic Church in this country to look hostile to a Catholic president from day one. This can only damage the church and can do very little to help Catholics influence, rightfully, decisions on life issues.

Do you see any bishops who are friendly to the incoming administration? Will they have a role to play in speaking for U.S. Catholics?

I think they will. Especially [Cardinal] Wilton Gregory because hes the ordinary of Washington, D.C., but also [Chicago archbishop] Cardinal Cupich, [Newark archbishop] Cardinal Tobin, Bishop McElroy [of San Diego]. But its a small group, honestly. But I believe they will play an important role. But honestly, it will be few bishops, but also the Jesuits in this country, as well as other Catholic voices that are not necessarily bishops or clergy. I dont see a swift turn of the U.S. bishops in the next few weeks or months. I dont.

What gives you hope about the new administration?

What we saw on Tuesday evening at the memorial service for the victims of Covid in Washington, D.C., is a great sign of hope. The symbolical and spiritual resources of this country are immense, and Joe Biden has demonstrated already his ability to draw from them.

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How Joe Biden's Catholic faith will shape his relationship with Pope Francisand the U.S. bishops - America Magazine